This is long... I mean, It's been like a year and a half.  You thought I gave up, didn't you?  Do I have to link the hamburger scene again?    

 

Last season I said I was going to put the car on the track by the fall.  It never happened.  I thought I was so much closer than I really was.  It was a pretty big disappointment.  
I told myself no excuses this year.  Get it there and rev the snot out of it.   Spoiler: Video at the bottom.
The things that happened between then and now?  There have been a lot.  
Brake line flaring, engine tear down, painting, custom digital displays, suspension, exhaust fitting, custom intake, welding, interior, coolant system, DC fan..  Literally every other aspect of building a car other than putting the windows in the doors, and of course all the other things I previously did.  
I'll touch on a few points of interest, at least to me.  As in, I wish I knew this earlier.
  
Brake lines:
I bent up the stainless lines and they looked so good.  I was pretty diligent on their fitment and I thought I got it all right.  I bought a flaring tool that seemed to do the job and called it a win.  That was loss number 1.  With the system in and bled I tried to build some pressure for the first time and dumped brake fluid on all four corners.  No matter what I tried the stainless lines were just too hard.  They never seated properly in the mating connectors.  Most of them wept.  I then bought some nickel copper lines and had another go.  Loss number 2.  They were way too soft.  I could not flare them properly either.  The flare would get 75 percent there then fold over on itself.  I tried and tried but couldn't get them to play nice.  So I bought the pre-flared lines and bent them up.  Not what I wanted, but they work.  Just call me Goldilocks.  No pictures because this was miserable.  

 

I welded up a thermostat switch on the radiator for the electric fan.  

It was about this time - I think - that I ran out of money so what better time to start another project!  A free one of course.  And you know what is free?  Thinking.  Thinking is free, and designing.  I wanted to make a gauge cluster that would replace the Fasten Seatbelt light on the dash.  My first electrical engineering project.  I used KiCAD to design the system.  The first revision was not too bad.  I used a Raspberry Pi Pico ($4.00!) as my brain and a few other components to get data from some sensors.  And it worked!  

I shared the project with a friend who happens to be an EE and he was eager to get a Rev 2 going that was more up to a standard.  With that, we cranked out a second revision of the PCB and built up a unit.  There is a brains board which takes in power and sensor data, uses the onboard ADC pins to get a digital signal and outputs the data to two displays and four RGB LED's mounted where the seatbelt light housing was.  Right now it only outputs oil temp and oil pressure. One of the LEDs will blink red if pressure is low or temp is high.  The other LED's will be hooked up to the tachometer and will act as shift lights.  Fully programmable, I plan to have them light up green at 4k, yellow at 5k, and blink red at 6.5k RPM.  I take a little credit for the vision here, but to get to this level of product, I relied heavily on my friend who was more than generous with his time and brain.  Thanks a million, Joe!

 

Engine off.  Warning light blinking for low pressure (or high temp)

 

Good pressure!

I am thinking about rev 3, already.  I want to add water temp and water pressure.  Also thinking about adding a wide band O2 maybe accelerometers for fun, that's a little bit more involved though.  A second rev of the display housing will be done soon.  I want something a little original looking, but still different?  I don't know.  We'll see.

Another free project was designing intake runners for the carbs.  I had these silly little filters mounted directly to the carb face and I didn't like it. So out came Fusion 360 again and I designed some runners.   

 

 I got some parts from sendcutsend and welded up the assemblies.  They sound good and do the job.  I like to think they add a little torque down low, as well.

 

 

 

Engine:  
With the engine in, it was time to fire it up for the first time and start tuning the DCOEs.  A few things went wrong here.  Tuning was impossible.  Nothing was consistent, I had a lean condition when snapping the throttle open, and some smoke out the tail pipe. Oil pressure was way too high as well.  I discovered this with my prototype digital gauges!  It was very frustrating but I let it be for the time being.  We had other things to get done.  We got the car over to Marshalls shop and we installed the exhaust.  He was generous enough to swing by with his trailer, pick it up and drop it back off.  

 

 

 

I bought a few items from AceRace.com to include V band clamps (Thanks, Zeppo!) and we got everything all fitted up and tacked together.  We were able to resolve the high oil pressure by dropping the oil pan and deburring the slide in the pressure relief valve.  With the car back home, I did the final TIG welding on the clamps and got the exhaust installed.  

Back to the engine.  I ended up pulling the carbs off and found oil pooling on top of the intake valve.  

I was so confused.  I then recalled the machine shop offering to put the valves in for me, which I let them do.  Hidden under those valve springs were Amazon.com sourced blue valve seals and they didn't seal a thing.  Oil was pouring through them.  The machine shop work was just about 2 years prior so there was no going back.  Off comes the head.  Number 1 intake valve was a little sticky coming out so replaced that, lapped it, and new seals.  Then I noticed vertical scratches on the bores. Welp, while you're in there(!) - I pulled the bottom end apart and honed the cylinders, again.   New rings, new bearings.  Back together.

In tandem with the gauges and runners, 

The interior went in.  It was a pain, but it went in.  I got an AGM battery mounted under the rear seat on the passenger side with a battery cut off mounted behind the driver seat.  The headliner was also a pain.  I used the wrong adhesive.  It did not play well with the paint and therefore was not sticky enough.  Front and rear windshields went in.  The rear was very difficult.  After that, I began to thread the 3 point seatbelts into the B pillar.  I quickly learned that there was no plate behind the B pillar and that the previous owner simply "tapped" sheet metal.  Maybe half a thread... maybe.  That was a debacle to fix, but I did it.  There is now a plate back there and plenty of threads.  

Back to the engine, I still could not get it to tune after the second rebuild.  I took the carbs off again.  It had to be the carbs.  
DCOEs have a lot of passages.  They are all plugged with little lead plugs at the sides of the housing.  I drilled out all the plugs and cleaned all of the passages with a small drill bit, carb cleaner, then ultrasonic cleaning.

 

 

I pulled out so much gunk, it was a step in the right direction.  I then went to Walmart and bought some lead shot sinkers.  I used them to plug up the passage ends. I made some blank jets for the starter circuit.  I never used it and it just leaked all the time, so I closed it all up.  

 

I still found that fuel would leak into the barrels.  WHY?!   Well after watching a video on properly setting the float height for the 4 thousandth time I realized I was missing a washer that was under the needle valve.  This meant that the float hit the valve at an aggressive angle and the valve never closed completely - 99 percent is not 100. Problem solved. Engine tune-able! 

I was running out of time.  The last track event was October 5/6.  Gotta move.  I bought font and rear ST sway bars, painted the hood, trunk, fenders, and doors.  They all look terrible, but I was getting this car on track no matter what.  With it drivable I took it over to Marshalls for a bolt check.  Up on the four post, with it sitting on it's wheels, we methodically went through everything and got it all ready to go.  I was missing a few cotter pins, a few loose nuts, bushings not fully seated.  It was a very good thing we did this.  

 

Important note
I owe a lot to this community for all the knowledge and advise with these cars.  Thank you.  I want to extend a very special thanks to Marshall and Jim G for always lending a hand and donating parts to this build.  You guys pulled me out of more than a few binds over the years. Time, parts, resources, it would not be on the road now without all the help. Thank you both so much. I'm glad I could help clean out all your excess parts.  

 

All that work culminated into about 30 miles on the street shaking the car down.  I will say that I reserved probably 15 of those miles for engine break in. After which I eagerly pressed my foot to the floor.  

30 miles around town, then the next 100

minutes on track.  Oil pressure was great, oil temp was a little high.  You can see the red light blinking in the video  I backed off on the straights to try to keep them reasonable - Under 250F.  But it was fun!    

 

Summit Point Lap - YouTube

 

I changed the oil when I got home and it looked like break-in oil should.  A little glittery, no chunks.  I cut the filter apart and was pleased to see clean pleats.

More things to come.  Are any of these projects ever really done?  For now, I can enjoy it for what it is meant to be.  Can't wait for the next track outing.
Coil overs, camber plates, more custom stuff.  Very exciting!
 

 

It was so windy that the blow up paint booth almost flew away.  This was the only day I had to paint so I improvised.  It was not the best...